What a dilemma. The Barrow County Board of Commissioners is facing some difficult choices as it searches for a new county manager. Less than a year after citizens adopted a county manager form of government, the county’s first manager resigned. Now county leaders are trying to find a replacement, but that’s proving to be a difficult task.
The two candidates the BOC is considering were both fired from manager jobs in other counties this year. It’s not clear if this was due to politics, or because those two managers were deficient in their ability to do the job.
Regardless, the reality is that finding a good, competent county manager in Georgia is a very, very difficult task. The pool of talent is shallow.

There are a lot of reasons for that. First, out of 159 counties in the state, only around 93 have county managers. Of those, only 18 or so are counties similar in size to Barrow or larger.
On top of that, the skill set needed to be a good county manager is rare. Not only does a county manager have to know the financial complexities of government, but also details about everything from paving a road to operating a jail. In addition, a county manager has to have the kind of personal skills to navigate the political minefield that is inherent in the job. The breadth of skills needed to be a successful manager is huge and very few people have that set of skills, or real world experience in the position.
Making this even more difficult is that Barrow County has a reputation in the state as having an unstable and politically fractured government. Why would a good county manager want to come to Barrow and put themselves in the middle of a political hurricane?

So what should Barrow leaders do?
First, decide what kind of county manager they really want. Jock Connell was not a bad county manager, but he was not a good fit for Barrow. His background in larger Gwinnett County didn’t prepare him for the kind of details and pressures a smaller county can bring on a manager. His skill set was different from what Barrow needed. That really wasn’t his fault; it was the fault of county leaders who were enamored with the idea of getting a big-county manager on board. They hired him for the wrong reasons.
Barrow County isn’t Gwinnett. It isn’t going to be the “next Gwinnett” no matter how many times some county leaders tout that line. The idea that Barrow has to have a big government with big government services is the result of deluded thinking by politicians who fancy themselves and Barrow County as being something it’s not.
What Barrow needs today isn’t a big government manager; it needs a hands-on manager who is comfortable with the little administrative details that are common in smaller communities.
It doesn’t need a visionary manager who has big ideas that cost a lot of money, it needs a manager who is a tightwad and can help stabilize the county’s beleaguered finances after several years of turmoil.
Finally, Barrow needs a county manager who has the right personality and patience to wade through the muck and mire of a broken political culture. He (or she) needs to have thick skin and the ability to roll with the punches that being a manager in Barrow will undoubtedly bring.

So where will such a manager come from?
That’s difficult to say. County leaders could search around the state for a manager who has a proven track record and who fits the above criteria, then go after that person and try to hire them away from another community.
That won’t be cheap, of course, and some citizens will complain about how much any county manager is paid. But the reality is this: To get a good county manager to Barrow who has a proven track record will cost $150,000+. That’s a lot of money, but that’s what the marketplace is bringing for high quality managers in a county the size of Barrow.
Another way to hire a manager is to find an assistant manager in another county who is ready to move up. That’s difficult because until someone is actually in the manager’s seat, it’s impossible to know if they can take the pressure. There’s a world of difference between being an assistant and being the guy with a bull’s-eye on your back.
Still, hiring a good manager away from another county is going to be very, very difficult. Barrow might have better luck gambling on an assistant who is hungry to move up.
Finally, Barrow can pursue managers who are currently out of a job. That is apparently the route county leaders have been following through its application process. That’s a very passive way to go about hiring a county manager, however; the county is only getting applications from those who apply, candidates who may or may not meet the criteria Barrow really needs.
A much better way for Barrow to do this would have been to hire a head-hunting consulting firm that is accustomed to matching high-level candidates to manager jobs. That might cost a little money, but the vetting process would have been more thorough.

It’ll be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the coming weeks. The process Barrow leaders have used to search for a new county manager has not been as professional as it should have been. How many people sitting on the BOC or inside county government have experience hiring? How many have experience hiring the person who will head up a multi-million dollar enterprise?
Hopefully, Barrow County will hire someone as county manager who will prove to be a good fit this time. That’s what Barrow taxpayers should expect.
Still, the process being used to find a new county manager for Barrow appears to be lacking. And when the process is shallow, the results will be shallow, too.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of the Barrow Journal. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.

Thank you, Mike. You did an excellent job breaking that down and explaining it. For Pete's sake, WHY does our local (both city of Winder and Barrow county) government continue to make these foolish decisions? Common sense people. Reopen the search process and instead of taking the lazy way out (settling among two finalists-both of whom were fired from their last job), try using one of the strategies that Mike mentioned. What do we have to lose? Certainly not our stellar reputation as being a county that makes wise decisions. We cannot lose what we never had. This county and its government has a reputation as the worst in N. GA. I can assure you that hiring either of the two finalists will ensure that Barrow will continue to be a laughing stock - and it is so unnecessary!

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